


Fairy Tale

by fajrdrako



Category: Legion of Super Heroes
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 23:23:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fajrdrako/pseuds/fajrdrako
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Nura Nal is worried, she takes her troubles to Dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fairy Tale

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the apazines Interlac, APA 247, and APA-LSH.

The scent of yellow rose bushes filled the garden. Nura, in a long, billowing skirt with flounces and lace, felt like one of Marie Antoinette's shepherd maidens. This might not be Versailles, but it had that ambience: cultivated formal gardens, stone cupids, water running from mouths of bronze dolphins into cool and crystal pools, with the distant twitter of birds. 

Her dress was silver, embroidered with doves or love-birds. Her underdress was white silk, as were her stockings and slippers, though the slippers were sewn with pearls. As she sat on a wrought-iron chair beside the stone balustrade of the terrace, her skirts made a rustling sound. 

She looked over the gardens, beyond which was a green forest. On a planet, or in any normal place, there would be a horizon, but not here. Spaces were deceptive here. To be truthful, perhaps there were no spaces here. She sighed. 

The silent man behind her put a hand on her shoulder. Because the sleeves were as low-cut as the neckline, his hand touched her bare flesh. His fingers were cool. She had not heard him approach, but he did not surprise her. He said, "You wish to talk?" 

She turned to him. Tall, gaunt, white-skinned, his dark hair seemed thicker than ever and his eyes glinted with sapphire light. He was dressed in a black frock-coat, a black vest black breeches, black stockings and black shoes with black buckles, though under all that blackness his shirt was white silk, like hers. His skin was almost as pale as the silk. 

"Please," she said. "I feel lonely tonight." 

He pulled another chair close to hers, and sat beside her. He came close to smiling. "It seems unlikely," he said. 

She made a gesture, and then laughed. "Despite the man in my bed, I am lonely. Is that wicked of me?" 

"You feel what you feel. Why feel guilt?" 

She shrugged. He took her hands, gently. "Nura, love, what troubles you?" 

"Memories. Regrets." She frowned slightly. "I wish I knew the reasons for the shape of my life. I can see so much, Dream. I can see whole great patterns of the past and future - and it doesn't add up to anything. Why not?" 

"Patterns are in the eye of the beholder." 

She looked skeptical. 

"Your life is a Rorschach blot," he said. "Look hard enough, you will see its shape. What can you possibly regret? You were one of the best leaders the Legion ever had. You live life fully. You saved many lives and made many people happy. You govern Naltor with wit and care. Why stare at the regrets?" 

She pulled her hands away from him and rose, walking to the wall and to the place where stone steps led to the stone paths of the garden. "If I go to the fountain, will it recede?" 

"Only if you wish it to. This is your dream." 

"You are the Shaper." 

He nodded, acknowledging this as he rose to follow her. They walked, slowly, to the fountain. It did not recede. She put her hand into the water and let it trickle through her fingers. It smelled like rosewater. "Dream?" He slipped the arm lightly around her waist, and walked around her to sit on the rim of the fountain. 

"Yes, Nura, love?" 

"What do you make of my life?" 

He smiled wryly. "Do you want an honest answer?" 

"I would not have asked, otherwise." 

"I takes a brave person to ask one of my family a question like that. We are not always kind." 

“I know that. Legionnaires learn to be brave, and to face the truth. Tell me." 

He put one foot on the edge of the broad stone brim of the fountain, wrapping an elegant arm around his knee as he spoke. His voice was gentle, mixing with the tinkling of the water so that they sounded crystalline and soft, like spun sugar. 

"Once upon a time, a Princess was born to the Queen and King of Naltor - the High Seer and her mate. This was the firstborn child of the Queen and King, and everyone knew she was special from the first moment. At her Christening, they called her Nura, a name which means Beauty." 

"Not in the language of Naltor." She laughed at him amused that he was making this up. 

"No. In a language so old that the last man to speak it died before Naltor's sun was born. I gave that name to your parents, so they could give it to you. 

"Everyone came to the Christening, though mortal eyes could not see them all. Titania brought rosemary for remembrance. Bast brought the gift of clear sight. Saint Cecilia brought health. Kali brought material wealth. But it was the Endless who brought the biggest gifts of all.... They beggared themselves that day, and they did it gladly, for   
love of you. 

"Destiny gave you the gift of seeing into his book of the future. 

"Death gave you a lifetime of wealth and wisdom and safety for every year, regardless of how many you have. 

"Delight gave you a smile that made others smile with you. 

"Destruction gave you power over your enemies, to win in battle. 

"Despair gave you the courage to carry on without her. 

"I gave you a selfish gift. Because I loved you, I gave you the power to commune with me here in my realm, to stay with me when you wished for our mutual pleasure. A selfish gift, but a rare one. I do not give it often, or lightly." 

She smiled. "Thank you, then." 

He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. "The pleasure is all mine." 

"Is that the end of your story? I fear it is all flattery." 

"No. I have another sibling." 

Since it was a dream, she knew things she would not have known when awake. "Desire," she said. 

"Yes. Desire loved you most of all. Desire is the most powerful of us, the most difficult to defeat, the most cruel and merciless - and yet, a life without Desire's touch would be no life at all." 

"Oh, how very true," said Nura wearily. She dropped her head. 

"Loving you beyond reason, Desire gave you the double gift that all women want. She made you desirable, and she filled you with love for others." 

“All women want that?”

He spread his hands, admitting his error. "And all men, too, whether they know it or not. Would you deny it?" 

"Speaking for myself... how could I?" 

"Have any of us been untrue to our promises? You have been brave, and lucky. You have escaped Death hundreds of times, against all odds. You have loved deeply and you have been loved deeply. You have seen truly into the future as no woman even of your race has ever done." 

"Cassandra," said Nura, with a trace of bitterness. 

"Yes. We loved her, too. We gave her all her world had to offer." 

"So she suffered for it." 

"You blame us?" 

She watched a leaf floating in the water. Idly, she touched it with her finger, making an eddy in the pool. "No. Not for our human faults. It is just that there seems to be a high price for every blessing." 

He nodded, as if she had guessed a significant riddle. "Death gave you wisdom. Can you imagine it otherwise? Would you choose a life without blessings?" 

"Was I wise when I left Thom?" 

"What do you think?" 

"I think you sound like some psychoanalyst, talking about Rorschach blots and throwing my questions back at me." 

He leaned forward, looking into her eyes, though his were so bright she could not see them. "You left Thom because you saw no other choice." 

"No. I would have destroyed him. I almost did. He is happy now." 

"Regrets?" 

"Yes. I miss him." 

"Is the pain of losing him worse than the pleasure of loving him?" 

"No." 

"And the others?" 

She looked at the sky, which had no sun, no stars, no clouds, no limit. It was the essence of blueness: azure taken from an artist's palate. "I have been so lucky. The other Legionnaires... such good people. I love them so much. Jo, Ayla, Imra, Jan, Tenzil, Cham.... Cham. And my sister was better to me than I deserved. She was wise, in the end. Wasn't she?" 

"What end? There is no end. If you love her, she is lucky as well. Why do you feel undeserving?" 

"Because.... because I never made her feel secure. She always wanted to compete with me, because I had the precognitive dream powers and she did not." 

"So? How did she deal with it?" 

"She made herself a powerful sorceress. She made herself into the White Witch.... She has gone beyond veils of understanding that I will never imagine. She has accomplished more than I ever will as High Seer of Naltor." 

"Well, then, I hardly see what you can complain of. She loved you, she competed with you, she made herself your equal, and surpassed you. Was her life poorer for it?" 

"I haven't told her how much I admire her - value her - love her." 

"When you wake up, tell her. I am sure it will please her." 

She laughed aloud. "What a simple answer!" 

"Complex problems often have simple answers." 

She hopped off the fountain rim, and went to him, putting her arms around him. He wrapped her in his arms, kissing her hair. 

"Morpheus?" 

"Hmm?" 

"Why am I melancholy?" 

"Because you are beautiful, because you are wise, because you are loving. How could a person with those qualities not be mournful? The world is out of joint, and you must live in it. So... often... your heart bleeds." 

She held his shoulders in her hands, burying her face in his neck-cloth. He smelled like toasted almonds. 

"Morpheus?" 

"Yes, love?" 

"What should I do?" 

He held her tightly, his cheek against her hair. "You can only do one thing, my Beauty. You can be yourself." 

\- - -


End file.
